Partners for Student Success
The YMCAs of Québec, in collaboration with Montreal Hooked on School and the Forum jeunesse de l’île de Montréal (FJÎM), is joining forces with the Mobilys.org Foundation to inspire young people to stay in school. Together, they are launching an all-new interactive portal for the YMCA Alternative Suspension program. The YMCA will use this interactive portal to announce current projects, such as Alternative Suspension, aimed at building ties with the community to promote the academic success of Québec’s youth. The interactive portal will encourage citizens and members of the business community to play a direct role in school retention, namely, by inviting them to share their own passion for their work and to donate money or equipment for projects and activities that will benefit our future workers and leaders.
Alternative Suspension, the first YMCAs of Québec program to be publicized on the Mobilys platform, is an initiative that empowers young people who have been temporarily suspended from school to turn this suspension into a positive experience fostering self-development and self-reliance. “The YMCAs of Québec are very excited to participate in the Mobilys.org Foundation’s collective goal. You can take real action today by checking out our projects and seeing what you can do at MOBILYS.ORG/ALTERNATIVESUSPENSION. Using the latest technologies, we offer you different ways to get involved with school dropout prevention in your community. We are inviting volunteer tutors, mentors and speakers to come share their passion with youth. You too can help us keep young people in school!” said George Kalimeris, National Director at the YMCAs of Québec’s Alternative Suspension and School Perseverance Programs.
Success in school is without a doubt a primary concern of families, especially in Montréal, where nearly 20% of Québec youth under the age of 20 leave school with no diploma or qualification. “We can now see that schools are not solely responsible for young people’s academic success. That is to say, citizens have an important role to play in helping our youth and the institutions that support them. This is why the Mobilys.org Foundation is providing the YMCAs of Québec with a citizen mobilization tool that will allow them establish strong ties with their community. Mobilys.org has already prompted more than 33,500 Québec citizens to support young people in their neighbourhood,” adds Nicolas P. Arsenault, CEO and Co-founder of the Mobilys.org Foundation.
The support brought by Montreal Hooked on School and the Forum jeunesse de l’île de Montréal (FJÎM) was crucial in realizing this project. “Montreal Hooked on School is proud to have contributed to launch a platform that will help the YMCAs of Québec promote community involvement in supporting youth and encouraging them to pursue their studies. The portal will put this support into action, making all the difference in the students’ progress,” said Andrée Mayer-Périard, Executive Director at Montreal Hooked on School. Thanks to this initiative, the YMCA can persuade more people to get involved in its school retention programs. “The 27 elected youth representatives from the Forum jeunesse de l’Île de Montréal chose to make school perseverance their top priority. The Mobilys platform is an unparalleled tool for spreading awareness about projects such as Alternative Suspension. We would like express our gratitude to the Du Parc YMCA for its commitment to promoting the academic success of youth and school perseverance initiatives”, said Marie-Pierre Tremblay, Vice-President of the Forum jeunesse de l’Île de Montréal.
“The YMCA Alternative Suspension program has proven to be an excellent solution to the issues around the traditional school suspension. I invite all school communities in Quebec to discover more about it through the new platform launched today”, said Catherine Harel-Bourdon, President of the Commission scolaire de Montréal, at today’s event.
The new Mobilys.org portal was unveiled and launched on December 19 at the Du Parc YMCA, 5550 Parc Avenue, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.